In 1784 while serving as American ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin anonymously published a letter suggesting that Parisians economi
ze on candles by rising earlier to use morning sunlight. His proposal included taxing shutters, also the rationing of candles and waking the public by ringing church bells and firing cannons at sunrise. Prescient though Franklin was, his basic concept would have to wait until 1916 when Germany first enacted daylight saving time as a wartime measure.
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